50
Used, New, and Out of Print Books - We Buy and Sell - Powell's Books
Cart |
|  my account  |  wish list  |  help   |  800-878-7323
Hello, | Login
MENU
  • Browse
    • New Arrivals
    • Bestsellers
    • Featured Preorders
    • Award Winners
    • Audio Books
    • See All Subjects
  • Used
  • Staff Picks
    • Staff Picks
    • Picks of the Month
    • 50 Books for 50 Years
    • 25 Best 21st Century Sci-Fi & Fantasy
    • 25 PNW Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books From the 21st Century
    • 25 Memoirs to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Global Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Women to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books to Read Before You Die
  • Gifts
    • Gift Cards & eGift Cards
    • Powell's Souvenirs
    • Journals and Notebooks
    • socks
    • Games
  • Sell Books
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Find A Store

PowellsBooks.Blog
Authors, readers, critics, media − and booksellers.

Guests

Barnett Newman

by K.P., May 25, 2005 12:38 PM
On my last real cultural outing before absconding from New York to Portland, a friend of mine and I visited the MoMA QNS — the temporary gallery open to the public while the main MoMA building underwent reconstruction. I found myself utterly transfixed in front of a white on white canvas. Standing there, I felt something grasping at my throat which placed me in an almost pleasant paralysis. What I had encountered was Barnett Newman's painting The Voice.

A few months later, my friend sent me a copy of Barnett Newman, a book that includes an extensive catalogue of Newman's works as well as two essays by Ann Temkin and Richard Schiff that place Newman among his contemporaries of the New York School such as Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollack. For me, Newman's paintings, with their characteristic vertical stripe — or zip — touch upon the sublime; and musing over them I am reduced to interior movement, bereft of adequate language, I am at once stirred and calm. Although I'm grateful for the essays, what I return to in this book again and again is the meditative space that the color plates of Newman's work afford me. Indeed, in some of my darkest or most reflective times I find solace in these reproductions of 18 Cantos, The Stations of the Cross, and Vir Heroicus Sublimis, to name a few.




{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##

Most Read

  1. Best Fiction of 2020 by Powell's Books
  2. 25 Books to Read Before You Die: 21st Century by Powell's Staff
  3. Midyear Roundup 2021: The Best Books of the Year (So Far) by Powell's Staff
  4. The 11 Best Places to Read by Will Schwalbe
  5. 25 Books to Read Before You Die: Pacific Northwest Edition by Powell's Staff

Blog Categories

  • Interviews
  • Original Essays
  • Lists
  • Q&As
  • Playlists
  • Portrait of a Bookseller
  • City of Readers
  • Required Reading
  • Powell's Picks Spotlight

Post a comment:

*Required Fields
Name*
Email*
  1. Please note:
  2. All comments require moderation by Powells.com staff.
  3. Comments submitted on weekends might take until Monday to appear.
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram

  • Help
  • Guarantee
  • My Account
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Security
  • Wish List
  • Partners
  • Contact Us
  • Shipping
  • Sitemap
  • © 2022 POWELLS.COM Terms